Poured a deep copper brown color. Absolutely gorgeous. Tan head formed, but didn't stick around long at all. Dammit!

The aroma is raisiny caramel. Reminds me of a homebrewed barleywine of mine where I used just a bit much Special B. Hops are very assertive, with a raw grassy aroma. Alcohol makes it's presence known by driving the hops straight into your brain.

The taste is not good. The alcohol dominates the flavor. It is almost as if someone took a hoppy brown ale, poured it in a glass, and spiked it with a shot of vodka. I think the herbal flavor hops are driving me faster towards that decision. The malt is a touch dry, and this only exascerbates the problem. It is raisiny/pruney in nature, and just kinda turns the tongue off as soon as it hits. This is a huge disappointment for me, but hey, I can't like every beer, right?

Mouthfeel is just a touch too dry and astringent. Again, the malt and hops are accentuating this in the worst possible way.

As a result of the taste and mouthfeel, I have to give this one low marks for drinkability. It's going to be a real struggle to finish this one. It's a damn shame, because I really love the other Stone brews I've had, and was really looking forward to this beer, but it just simply does not agree with my tastebuds. :-/

Pours a cloudy, medium-dark brown. No head or lacing. Smells of prunes, raisins, anise, and chocolate. No roasted aromas detected. Smell is offensively sweet. Tastes is also of prunes and raisins, no "brown" characteristics until the end, when it finishes with a slight malt-husk bitterness. No hoppiness detected (that makes it sounds like a landmine). Mouthfeel is thick but dead. I have no idea why this beer is classified as an American Brown Ale; it definitely sems like a brother of English Browns like Samuel Smith, Riggwelter Yorkshire, Hobgoblin, etc. The sickening sweetness reminds me of Thomas Hardy's Ale. This is not at all what I am looking for in a brown.

My local store always waits weeks and weeks before putting the beer they get on the shelves. Pisses me off to no end, but lets me get a little word of mouth about the beers before I plunk down my preciou$ ca$h. This one came recommended from a Stone-head. I should have known that some people will support their team to the end. Especially when you're within Stone-throw of Chicago. Damned cubbies.

Those crazy asses at Stone would be the ones to create a ~8% ABV beer and call it a mild. The rambings on the bottle are just getting increasingly incoherent.

Deep scarlett in color. Smallish head, no lace.

Malt monster. Hints of booze on nose.

This beer is hard to describe other than that its a malty disaster. The bitterness here isn't the tangerine-like roundedness of other Stoney's. No hints of floral hops, just unbalanced bitterness and lots of hints of a brown ale on steroids.

If this beer is made as a counterpoint of all their hoppy beers, well, i'm okay with it. But on its own, come on. I would never get this again.

To paraphrase Moe the bartender, this beer is post-modern. Weird for the sake of being weird.

A- Thin tan head on a cloudy dark brown body.
S- Toffee malts. Maybe a bit stale smell. Some chocolate also.
T- Some strong toffee and chocolate malts. Some stale taste going on. I think it is past its prime by a year or two. Pretty sweet also. Some alcohol does make it through but nothing big. Bit of a dry hop notice also. It helps balance it a little but doesn't really do anything big for it. I'm not sure if the hops are supposed to be that low of if they have lost their bang over the years (hoping they lost their bang).
M- Thinner body. Maybe it's a very thin medium. Low carbonation but enough to leave a little tingle on the tongue.
D- I think it is past its prime and is nothing amazing, or even to good. It is kind of hard to drink.

Poured a deep brown in color with ruby tones around the edge of my glass with a thin off-white head to compliment. Nose is oddly hoppy for a brown ale, almost astringent though there is that typical nut quality present. Taste isn't nearly as harsh as the nose would have you believe, though it still is a bit unbalanced, the bitterness overwhelms the other qualities. Alcohol too is very noticable which I think takes something away from it. The best I can say about this is that it pushes the limits of the style... I just don't like the direction they're pushing it in.

To each his own in the end, but in my honest opinion there are far better brown ales out there but worth a try if you like hoppy beers and want to try a brown ale.

Pours a great head that lasts until the last drop. The dark brown color is nice too The smell is slightly sour ith very sweet tones of belgian sugar. The taste is very watery and light bodied. There's a slight roastiness with a sweet/sour mix that's not very enjoyable. The mouthfeel is a little less than good. Overall I would never have this beer again.

Picked this one up the other day on sale for $6.44
A small tan head rest upon a large mahogany base. When held up to the light a reddish hue will come though.
Smell is sweet wood-ish...lets say nutty.
The taste is sweet, and again could be some nuts in there with a hint of an alcohol aftertaste.
Mouthfeel is on the thicker side, leaning towards a light syrup.
Drinkability is average or even below average. I could have one of these. The bomber was a little too much.

An Imperial brown ale, I guess you'd call it. Deep Mahogany with a light tan head. Scotch aroma, slightly smoky it seems; may be the yeast throwing that in there though, as it's really slight. Bitter with a bit of smoked malt/salami flavor. Slight straw note, and a bit astringent on the finish. The mouthfeel is decent, and the bitterness lingers a while. All in all, a big disappointment after the 6th and 7th Anniversary offerings. Well, actually compared to everything else I've ever tried from Stone.

Stone I love you, however with this one, well just didn't tickle my fancy bone. It pours a great dark brown with shades of black. The smell is of toffee and syrup, the malts are strong, a subtle hint of citrus hop. The taste is syrupy and rather dry, not bad but better in the brown dept (ex. Downtown brown Lost Coast Brewing) Feels good, not bad for cold nights but probably won't go back to.

Big ass bomber purchased at Jims Homebrew in Spokane a few months back. Its been hiding out in my stash. Brewed with barley, hops, water, yeast and a rather harrowingly glorious habit of taking liberties with the English language. Hmm.

Poured a dark cola brown color that became red when held up to light. Virtually no head or lace (what little there was had a mocha tan color). Kinda boring looking.

The smell was typical for a brown ale. Where this one differs is that its sweeter than most. Very strong brown sugar and molasses type smells. While there's a slight roasty malt scent, I can detect no hop scent of any kind, whatever the label says. If they are in the beer, they are in a quantity that prevents them from standing out from the barley and yeast whose presence was also trumpeted from the label.

This is a little more interesting in the taste than in the nose. The hops finally make themselves felt by adding a slight dryness to the heavy sweetness of this beer that is especially noteworthy at the swallow. Otherwise this is a sweet malt playground that is only slightly mitigated by a background flavor of raisins and figs. In a strange way this almost tastes like an ill-advised attempt to straddle the divide between brown ale and imperial stout, with the emphasis on the brown ale. This could be an interesting tasting beer, but its a little too insipidly sweet for that to happen.

Mouthfeel is about right for a brown ale. Thoroughly medium bodied. The carbonation is definitely lower than it should be. Perhaps this thing is so loaded up with sugar the yeast isnt rising enough. Ive heard of that happening with breweries with little or no quality control, but thats not Stone, so I think this was actually meant to be this way. Regardless, this needs a little livening up.

I suppose this is drinkable if you really want a dark beer that is massively sweet. To me, this seems calculated to appeal to some netherworld between BMC drinkers who are starting to branch out (it's too bitter for them) and hardcore beer geeks (it's too sweet for them). One thing it does well is hide its abv of 7.8%. Not particularly impressed with this, but it is drinkable in limited quantities  the limit being this bomber. Once its gone, Ill have no urge for another.

Small dark cream colored head doesn't last long. Transparent cherry cola colored beer with no sign of carbonation. Chocolate malt aroma. Flavor starts of lightly sweet with hints of chocolate and tea hoppiness. Bitterness takes over midway through and is quickly joined by a rush of alcohol. It's pretty light in body which makes the alcohol stand out even more. Maybe my expectations are off, but I'm just not diggin it.

Poured a nice deep brown with ruby under tones. Head was tan and stayed a decent time. Lacing was there but didnt last long.
Aroma was roasted malt, a slight sweet maybe caramel smell, and a hint of hops
Taste was mostly roasted(actually more burnt) coffee mixed in was some nuttiness and a nice jab of earthy bitterness.
Mouthfeel was just slightly above average for a brown ale. Not too slick but not too filling.
Drinkability, while I could drink a few of these and enjoy them, I am not going out of my way to purchase more of this beer. Stone puts out better beers than this one.

In honor of the day, presented my lover with a bronze choker with this one on 10/2/2004. 16-oz. pour at Sunset in shaker glass.

Film of elliptical, swirling thin head to start. Ruby brown hue but still slightly transparent with some light motion going on inside. Hidden bouquet of malt with caramel and juniper sweetness sneaking up at the end. Huge malt crunch with some roasted chestnut notes following at finish; some raisin and nutmeg notchings as well, along with some peat moss earthiness as pour warms. Lower end of medium-bodied spectrum, this is a nice offering but seems to lack something  there is a hat full of hollow in the pour that needs, somehow, to be filled, and this offering falters on that account.

I've said "sweet" a lot when talking about Stone beers and always meant it in that Stifler-meets-Miami-singles-bar-guy way. You might know it as "SUH-weet." Synonyms include "saucy," "nice" (see also NOI-ce), and "ughhh (ughhh, naNAnaNA)."

But 8th is sweet in the other, much more maligned sense of the word. Perhaps to cover up the smokey alcohol or perhaps to balance hops that are naturally out of proportion (being Stone and all), the caramel/toffee sweetness is first interesting and then just plain obnoxious, like the opening minutes of a late-night movie on Showtime.

This feels in the mouth like a mild ale, somehow, with half a shot of vodka mixed in.

The malty brown flavor is excellent and the hop profile of great interest, but it seems that Stone has used the 8th anniversary to merge all of their favorite styles (IPA, stock ale, and stout) into a hodge-podge that some might call a brown ale.

I'm not one to keep beer from breweries like Stone and Three Floyds and others stuck to BJCP style guidelines. Lee Chase and every brewer like him keeps American craft beer ahead of the rest of the world, challenging, revising, and ultimately revolutionizing the art with creativity and commendable spirit. But he, too, is faulted and this is a beer wraught with overzealousness, perhaps better as an idea than its actual manifestation.

Sweet, but deceptive and ultimately confused. Hm. I think I dated her once.